The Gardner's Hand
by Westel
Summary: Rose reached behind her and put her hand under a folded blanket, pulling out an old lapdesk. Do you recognize this?


The Gardener's Hand  
(A tale that needed telling)  
Westel

Sam stood and stretched, trying to ease the kink in his back. "I'm coming, Rosie-Lass. Just give me a minute!" He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his perspiring face. Stars, but it was hot!

Samwise Gardner reached up and loosened his stock, relishing the resulting coolness as a late afternoon breeze blew across his skin. In the distance he heard the first rumbling echoes of an approaching storm; a dark grey cloud was just inching its way above the top of the trees. He left the flower bed, stopping long enough to brush the soil from his breeches. No stains, thank goodness. Poor Rosie didn't need to be worrying about his spoiling his good clothes like one of their children.

_Our children_, he pondered. Sam took off his coat and threw it over his arm. Their children were long gone, Tolman last of all. But though they were busy with lives and families of their own, Rosie still looked after them as if they were but babes sometimes—and himself, too, he thought with a smile. But things hadn't been quite right with his Rose lately, and he was that put out about it.

All this botheration—what with being mayor for so long—was taking a toll more on his beloved girl than himself, he realized. He found himself thinking about her more and more when he was in town, regretting the time away from her as they grew older. They had come so far together since that day when they were married under the young mallorn tree.

Now he fretted about her, and often left the office early to come check on her. Though they had a girl come in three times a week to help with household chores, Rosie was often tired and pale of late and Sam feared she tried to do too much in his absence.

But as he approached the large green door of Bag End, Rosie waited on the stoop to greet him, and her cheeks bespoke her name. In the shade of the morning-glory vine crowning the door frame, she looked for a moment a lass barely 50, and her eyes twinkled with laughter as she kissed him in greeting. "You've been playin' in my flower beds again, Sam!" she laughed, ushering him in to the relative coolness of the smial. "Gettin' yourself all hot and sticky—and in your good clothes, too!"

Sam grinned, knowing her admonishment, as always, was in love. Though his Rose had a temper and was not afraid to show it, her love for her husband and family overcame it much as a spring rain soothes the raw winds of winter. Over the years the couple's spirits had grown and entwined so much that each knew the other's thoughts, each finished the other's sentences, each knew the value they held in the other's heart. A look, a caress, a smile from his Rosie was as precious to Sam as the Silmarils were to the Elven-folk.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but I'm afraid the saying is true, that you can take the gardener out of the soil, but you can't take the soil out of the gardener. I wish…" Sam hesitated.

"No need holding your tongue with me, my boy," Rosie said, divesting her husband of his weskit and pulling him to his favorite chair. "I know you're tired of having to meddle in the affairs of hobbits when you'd rather be meddlin' in the affairs of growin' things."

Sam sat down heavily, his bones creaking, and pulled Rosie onto his lap.

"Don't, Sam, I'm too heavy for you to hold me this way, silly lad!"

But Sam held on, relishing her weight across his knees. Though her waist had thickened with the bearing of thirteen children, to Sam Rosie was as lithe as any hobbit-lass and more beautiful than any of them.

"Don't you think I'd let you know if you were too heavy, deary?" Sam teased, leaning back into the comfort of the chair and drawing her closer. "I don't believe I've done this in awhile."

Rose relaxed and let her body curve into her husband's, resting her head on his shoulder. "We've been too busy," she said.

"Well, it ain't right us being so busy," Sam fussed, his finger tracing the line of Rosie's temple. His fingers had lost their calluses over the years and no longer snagged in her hair. Though grey now, her curls still held hints of gold that shot out in the sunshine like shafts of light. "I—Rosie, I…"

"Out with it, love. What's on your mind?" Rosie sat up and placed both hands on his shoulders.

"I'm worried about you, Rose. I fear you're not tellin' me something—I've never known you to hold back anything before, and it scares me that you are now."

"Oh, bother!" Rosie squirmed out of Sam's grasp and smoothed her skirts. "There' was nothin' wrong with me a good turnin' out didn't cure!"

"What d'you mean?" Sam rose from his chair and put his arm around his wife's waist, shaking her a little. "Come now, there're no secrets between us. What's going on in that head of yours?"

"Well, I…" Rose looked toward the hall which lead to the bedrooms. "I was cleanin' in the Master's old bedroom, tryin' to sort out some old clothes and linens."

"Rose, you know I don't want you doin' that rough work no more…"

"You don't have to worry, I was just havin' a bit of fun, really!"

"A bit of fun…" Sam held Rose away from him and studied her. His first impression of her at the door after she had called him had been accurate. She did look much improved. The look of restlessness and fatigue had dropped away from her in the course of that very day. _What in the world…?_

"Well, it's plain I won't get my supper until you've told me what you did today. And I have to know, lass—why, you're fairly bloomin'!" He bent over and nuzzled her under her right ear and she giggled like a schoolgirl.

"Samwise Gamgee!" she exclaimed, reverting back to her pet name for him though they'd been known by 'Gardner' these many years. "For a hobbit-lad of nearly ninety-six, you're feisty yet." She hugged him close, then drew back, her smile fading. "But dearest, you've been working too hard, and you're away from home all the day long, all these years now…"

"So that's what's been botherin' you," Sam whispered. "Interestin', that." He chucked her under the chin. "But that's not all of your story, is it? What happened today to make you so carefree?"

She reached up and cradled his fingers in hers. "Come with me and see," and she pulled him down the hall and into Frodo's old room.

Sam hesitated at the door before Rosie dragged him in by the hand and made him sit beside her on the bed. He looked around at the room which hadn't been used since Tolman had vacated it four years ago.

It hadn't changed much over the years, plaster being what it was and beams just getting darker over time. The coverlet on the bed had been replaced, and the curtains, but the old carpet that Bilbo bought on the occasion of Frodo's adoption was still there. Frodo had never given up that room—even after Bilbo had gone to Rivendell—until the day he departed for the Grey Havens.

Rose reached behind her and put her hand under a folded blanket, pulling out an old lap-desk. "Do you recognize this?" she asked.

Sam's eyes widened. "Aye, I do—but I haven't laid eyes on it for decades—I thought Frodo took it with him." His hand strayed to the inlay on the top—the initials **_FB_**—and traced their contours. "Fancy you should find it after all these years." He looked up at her. "Where did you find it?"

"It was under some newspapers at the bottom of the chest, and the newspaper was covered with several layers of quilts and blankets. I can only guess that when we moved Elanor into this room I somehow missed lookin' under the newspaper– I dunno, really. When I started cleanin' it out today, there were not a few moths, believe me! But when my hand fell upon this, I knew it was a treasure indeed." Rosie hesitated. "I didn't stop to think, my dear. He must have left it for you, you see. Please forgive me…"

"Shush, now," Sam admonished her, patting her hand. "You were excited and curious – how can I fault you for that? Besides," he added, "anything that Frodo wanted me to have, he'd have wanted you to have it, too. Those last few months, he…" Sam stopped, sudden tears startling him. "I haven't thought on him as much as I used," he whispered, his head bowed in shame.

"Now you just stop that, Sam!" Rose smacked his arm gently, her own brown eyes brimming. "There isn't a day goes by that you don't recollect something about him, or speak of him, or quote something he said to you long ago!" She reached up with both hands and patted her husband's cheeks. "It's just that the hurt of losin' him finally went away, what with you bein' so busy as husband and father, gardener and mayor six times over. Don't you see?" she hurried on, seeing the doubt in Sam's eyes. "It's what he wanted, love. It's what Frodo wanted for us more than anything in the world—it's why he left, so we could go on."

Sam' eyes spilled over and he wiped the tears away, not bothering to use the handkerchief still carefully folded in his pocket. "I do love you, lass," he said, smiling at her. "But how do you know what was in Frodo's heart? He withdrew so much from everything at the end, even those he loved."

"He explained it to you himself, before he went away. You told me what he said: _'You will be the Mayor, of course, as long as you want to be, and the most famous gardener in history…And that will keep you as busy and as happy as anyone can be, as long as your part of the Story goes on.'_"

"Aye," Sam sighed, his thoughts far away on that day when Frodo told him he was going to leave. "He told me not to be sad; he said I couldn't always be torn in two."

_You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do._

"I always thought he was just trying to make me feel better," Sam said, wiping his eyes again.

"But he wasn't, love. I know that now." Rosie's features became teasing as she rifled through the desk. "Look, there are so many things in here I want to show you, but this most of all." Rose handed Sam a folded piece of paper. "He understood that you had something more to do—his task was done and over, but The Shire needed mending, and Samwise Gamgee was the one to do it. He couldn't bear the thought of that task bein' a burden for you. He knew that you and I together would see the task through." She looked at the parchment. "Read it," she said.

Taking a deep breath, Sam settled himself and opened the folded sheet. There, in Frodo's own flowing script, Sam read…

** _The Gardener and His Wife_**

_ He rises early, standing long to gaze upon the land,  
And looks into the West to thank his Maker.  
His hands are rough but tender as he works among the plants,  
His heart protected by the love around him._

_ She looks upon her husband through the window as he works,  
And nestles baby girl upon her shoulder.  
She hums a simple lullaby, her thoughts of love and home,  
Her gentle nature soothing all around her._

_ They live full lives of peace and work, of hearth and family,  
Their love embracing all and like no other.  
They look no further than the next-day, pleased to wait and see,  
Content to know the work they do will bless them._

_ They do not heed that what they do restores and builds the land,  
They only know they have a purpose standing.  
Though life will bring both pain and joy, send trouble with the good,  
Their hearts entwined will keep them safe together.  
Their hearts entwined will keep them safe forever._

"Oh, my!" Sam said, brushing his fingers over the words after he'd read them. "Oh, my," he said again.

"You see, dearest? He knew you would be happiest where you are now. And the funny thing is…" Rose took Sam's free hand in hers, pulling it to her heart. "Though he wrote it for a time long past, he wrote it for all our time together—even now."

Sam looked at her a long while, clutching the parchment in his hand, before lowering his eyes and reading it once more. When he finished, his eyes were glistening with tears again, but he was smiling.

"Rosie, you know my term as Mayor ends in a month."

"Aye."

"They've asked me to serve another term."

"Have they?"

"I've declined."

Rosie smiled happily. "I hoped you would."

She opened the desk again and Sam gently placed the poem in it, shifting some other papers as he did so.

"What's this?" he asked, pulling out a smudged parchment and opening it. He stared at it for a moment or two, then burst out laughing.

"I thought you'd like that," Rose said, beaming through her own tears now.

"Why in Middle Earth would Frodo keep my old practice-papers?" he asked, overwhelmed with memories of the days Bilbo taught him to read and write. The letters were scrawled all over the parchment, supplemented with assorted finger-prints and blots, no heed taken to upper or lower case. And there in the bottom right corner Sam had printed his own name for the very first time:

_**sAmWIsE**_

"Because he loved you—so very much," answered his darling wife, just 92 and presently looking like the bride of his youth. "And he wanted to tell you just how much by leaving his treasures behind for ye to find."

"A shame I didn't find them—_you_ didn't find them—until now."

"I'm not so sure, husband. Mister Frodo had a fair sense of things—almost uncanny, it was."

"Yes—yes, he did." Sam paused, his gaze far away; then the moment passed and he took his wife's hands in his own. "Rose?"

"Yes, love?"

"That one month that's left of my term—I believe I'm going to take a long overdue holiday—about four weeks, I'm thinking."

"That's just grand, Sam!"

"But first—do you think you could feed a starvin' hobbit? My stomach's fair rumblin'."

"It's almost ready. Bring that with you if you like," Rose motioned toward the lap-desk. "There's quite a bit more in there you might find amusin'."

Sam picked up the desk and followed his wife from the room, carefully closing the door behind him. He tucked it under his arm and placed his other one around Rosie's shoulders. "Like what? Have you gone through everything without me?"

"Of course I have," Rose bantered. "There's an entry Frodo must have copied from his journal, where he says something about 'the _little Gamgee boy who's always underfoot.'_ What do you suppose he meant by that?"

"Underfoot? Me? Why, I was _never_ underfoot! What did he mean, underfoot?"

And the Gardners went into the kitchen for their supper, their faces beaming with each other's company and a deep fondness for their absent friend, Frodo Baggins, who would always hold the most special place in their hearts—until the day they died.

The End


End file.
